, 1887-11-26
Powderly Will Resign.

INDIANAPOLIS, Nov. "a. - General
Master Workman Powderly, in response
to a request from prominent knights of
this city urging him to reconsider his
announced determination to resign from
the leadership OF the order, has written
a letter which the following is the sub
stance:
You ask me to reconsider my determi-
nation to ask a release FROM the head of
the order after the next session. | do not
see how | can considerably do so, and it
will be unfair to ask me to retain a posi-
ton which | do not want and which | am
confident another will fill with better ad-
vantage to the order at large. During the
past year L received a thousand communi-
cations from individuals it is true, in whi1h
| was abused, condemned and asked to
resign. The papers were full of abuse,
threats of impeachment were made and
threats of withdrawal from the order
freely INDUCED in.
Through this cloudy gloom but one ray
of light made its way, and that came from
far away Denver, where district assembly
No. 50 passed those ringing resolutions
indorsing my course and condemning the
anarchist element which sought to prosti-
tute the order to its own b~aseness.
| felt, in view of all these d~emonstra.
tons, that the various assemblies of the
country would stand more cheerfully by
some other man than they would stand by
me.
True, | have never had cause to find
fault with the official treatment | have
received, but when the blows fall thick
and fast, despite friendly intercession,
which, of course, cheers the person on
whose head those blows are falling, | be.
lieve the best service that | can render
to the order is to step aside and allow
some other member to do the work I'm
trying to do.
l have devoted years to the cause Of
labor.
My life in the service of humanity has
been one constant fight by night against
the enemies of labor aud the elements of
discord, which opposed me from within
and without. Such a life has been a
most exciting one aud has lett me with a
legacy which | can never part with In the
shape of a heart trouble that may do Its
work at any moment | could not make
such a subject a matter for discussion in
my annual message or before the general
assembly. Personal interests, socialities
and comforts are some of the things of the
past with me for years.
| long to be once more a free man; for
to-day L am bound by ties the most esti-
mable and ruled over by not one but
500, 900 masters. You can never know
the strain under which | have lived for
years. 1t would not be becoming for me
to speak of the financial sacrifice | have
made for the order; and | am free to say
| would be willing to make the same sac
riice again of either health, wealth or
comfort for the order of the knights.
L have for eight years, as general mas
ter workman, strivenly as honestly as |
knew to better the condition OF my fellow
workmen by helping to build an organiza
ton through which they would be pro-
tected in their rights.
That organization is built, but profane
hands have been laid upon it and the men
who gathered at Chicago and gave out
that hostile declaration to the world, did
so only because anarchy could not rule the
order. | don't charge all those who at
tended the meeting in Chicago with being
anarchists, but | claim that a vast major
ity of them did not represent their con
S%tltuentS.'